“This edition as I see it is going to run about ten or twelve pages longer than the last one,” Macon said. “It’s adding the business women that does it—listing which hotels offer elevator escorts, which ones serve drinks in the lobbies . . . I think I ought to be paid more.”
“I’ll talk it over with Marvin,” Julian said, flipping through the manuscript.
Macon sighed. Julian spent money like water but Marvin was more cautious.
“So now you’re on the U.S. again,” Julian said.
“Well, if you say so.”
“I hope it’s not going to take you long.”
“I can only go so fast,” Macon said. “The U.S. has more cities.”
“Yes, I realize that. In fact I might print this edition in sections: northeast, mid-Atlantic, and so forth; I don’t know . . .” But then he changed the subject. (He had a rather skittery mind.) “Did I tell you my new idea? Doctor friend of mine is looking into it: AccidentalTourist in Poor Health. A list of American-trained doctors and dentists in every foreign capital, plus maybe some suggestions for basic medical supplies: aspirin, Merck Manual—”
“Oh, not a Merck Manual away from home!” Macon said. “Every hangnail could be cancer, when you’re reading a Merck Manual.”
“Well, I’ll make a note of that,” Julian said (without so much as lifting a pencil). “Aren’t you going to ask me to autograph your cast? It’s so white.”
“I like it white,” Macon said. “I polish it with shoe polish.”
“I didn’t realize you could do that.”
“I use the liquid kind. It’s the brand with a nurse’s face on the label, if you ever need to know.”
“Accidental Tourist on Crutches,” Julian said, and he rocked back happily in his chair.
Macon could tell he was about to start his Macon Leary act. He got hastily to his feet and said, “Well, I guess I’ll be going.”
“So soon? Why don’t we have a drink?”
“No, thanks, I can’t. My sister’s picking me up as soon as she gets done with her errand.”
“Ah,” Julian said. “What kind of errand?”
Macon looked at him suspiciously.
“Well? Dry cleaner’s? Shoe repair?”
“Just an ordinary errand, Julian. Nothing special.”
“Hardware store? Pharmacy?”
“No.”
“So what is it?”
“Uh . . . she had to buy Furniture Food.”
Julian’s chair rocked so far back, Macon thought he was going to tip over. He wished he would, in fact. “Macon, do me a favor,” Julian said. “Couldn’t you just once invite me to a family dinner?”
“We’re really not much for socializing,” Macon told him.
“It wouldn’t have to be fancy. Just whatever you eat normally. What do you eat normally? Or I’ll bring the meal myself. You could lock the dog up . . . what’s his name again?”
“Edward.”
“Edward. Ha! And I’ll come spend the evening.”
“Oh, well,” Macon said vaguely. He arranged himself on his crutches.
“Why don’t I step outside and wait with you.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Macon said.
He couldn’t bear for Julian to see his sister’s little basin hat.
He pegged out to the curb and stood there, gazing in the direction Rose should be coming from. He supposed she was lost again. The cold was already creeping through the stretched-out sock he wore over his cast.
The trouble was, he decided, Julian had never had anything happen to him. His ruddy, cheerful face was unscarred by anything but sunburn; his only interest was a ridiculously inefficient form of transportation. His brief marriage had ended amicably. He had no children. Macon didn’t want to sound prejudiced, but he couldn’t help feeling that people who had no children had never truly grown up. They weren’t entirely . . . real, he felt.
Unexpectedly, he pictured Muriel after the Doberman had knocked her off the porch. Her arm hung lifeless; he knew the leaden look a broken limb takes on. But Muriel ignored it; she didn’t even glance at it. Smudged and disheveled and battered, she held her other hand up. “Absolutely not,” she said.
She arrived the next morning with a gauzy bouffant scarf swelling over her hair, her hands thrust deep in her coat pockets. Edward danced around her. She pointed to his rump. He sat, and she bent to pick up his leash.
“How’s your little boy?” Macon asked her.
She looked over at him. “What?” she said.
“Wasn’t he sick?”
“Who told you that?”
“Someone at the vet’s, when I phoned.”
She went on looking at him.
“What was it? The flu?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, probably,” she said after a moment. “Some little stomach thing.”
“It’s that time of year, I guess.”
“How come you phoned?” she asked him.
“I wanted to know why Edward wouldn’t lie down.”
She turned her gaze toward Edward. She wound the leash around her hand and considered him.
“I tap my foot but he never obeys me,” Macon said. “Something’s wrong.”
“I told you he’d be stubborn about it.”
“Yes, but I’ve been practicing two days now and he’s not making any—”
“What do you expect? You think I’m magical or something? Why blame me?”
“Oh, I’m not blaming—”
“You most certainly are. You tell me something’s wrong, you call me on the phone—”
“I just wanted to—”
“You think it’s weird I didn’t mention Alexander, don’t you?”
“Alexander?”
“You think I’m some kind of unnatural mother.”
“What? No, wait a minute—”
“You’re not going to give me another thought, are you, now you know I’ve got a kid. You’re like, ‘Oh, forget it, no point getting involved in that,’ and then you wonder why I didn’t tell you about him right off. Well, isn’t it obvious? Don’t you see what happens when I do?”
Macon wasn’t quite following her logic, perhaps because he was distracted by Edward. The shriller Muriel’s voice grew, the stiffer Edward’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. A bad sign. A very bad sign. Edward’s lip was slowly curling. Gradually, at first almost soundlessly, he began a low growl.
Muriel glanced at him and stopped speaking. She didn’t seem alarmed. She merely tapped her foot twice. But Edward not only failed to lie down; he rose from his sitting position. Now he had a distinct, electrified hump between his shoulders. He seemed to have altered his basic shape. His ears were flattened against his skull.
“Down,” Muriel said levelly.
With a bellow, Edward sprang straight at her face. Every tooth was bare and gleaming. His lips were drawn back in a horrible grimace and flecks of white foam flew from his mouth. Muriel instantly raised the leash. She jerked it upward with both fists and lifted Edward completely off the floor. He stopped barking. He started making gargling sounds.
“He’s choking,” Macon said.
Edward’s throat gave an odd sort of click.
“Stop it. It’s enough! You’re choking him!”
Still, she let him hang. Now Edward’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. Macon grabbed at Muriel’s shoulder but found himself with a handful of coat, bobbled and irregular like something alive. He shook it, anyhow. Muriel lowered Edward to the floor. He landed in a boneless heap, his legs crumpling beneath him and his head flopping over. Macon crouched at his side. “Edward? Edward? Oh, God, he’s dead!”
Edward raised his head and feebly licked his lips.
“See that? When they lick their lips it’s a sign they’re giving in,” Muriel said cheerfully. “Doggie, Do taught me that.”
Macon stood up. He was shaking.
“When they lick their lips it’s good but when they put a foot on top of your foot i
t’s bad,” Muriel said. “Sounds like a secret language, just about, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t you ever, ever do that again,” Macon told her.
“Huh?”
“In fact, don’t even bother coming again.”
There was a startled silence.
“Well, fine,” Muriel said, tightening her scarf. “If that’s the way you feel, just fine and dandy.” She stepped neatly around Edward and opened the front door. “You want a dog you can’t handle? Fine with me.”
“I’d rather a barking dog than a damaged, timid dog,” Macon said.
“You want a dog that bites all your friends? Scars neighbor kids for life? Gets you into lawsuits? You want a dog that hates the whole world? Evil, nasty, angry dog? That kills the whole world?”
She slipped out the screen door and closed it behind her. Then she looked through the screen directly into Macon’s eyes. “Why, yes, I guess you do,” she said.
From the hall floor, Edward gave a moan and watched her walk away.
eight
Now the days were shorter and colder, and the trees emptied oceans of leaves on the lawn but remained, somehow, as full as ever, so you’d finish raking and look upward to see a great wash of orange and yellow just waiting to cover the grass again the minute your back was turned. Charles and Porter drove over to Macon’s house and raked there as well, and lit the pilot light in the furnace and repaired the basement window. They reported that everything seemed fine. Macon heard the news without much interest. Next week he’d be out of his cast, but no one asked when he was moving back home.
Each morning he and Edward practiced heeling. They would trudge the length of the block, with Edward matching Macon’s gait so perfectly that he looked crippled himself. When they met passersby now he muttered but he didn’t attack. “See there?” Macon wanted to tell someone. Bikers were another issue, but Macon had confidence they would solve that problem too, eventually.
He would make Edward sit and then he’d draw back, holding out a palm. Edward waited. Oh, he wasn’t such a bad dog! Macon wished he could change the gestures of command—the palm, the pointed finger, all vestiges of that heartless trainer—but he supposed it was too late. He tapped his foot. Edward growled. “Dear one,” Macon said, dropping heavily beside him. “Won’t you please consider lying down?” Edward looked away. Macon stroked the soft wide space between his ears. “Ah, well, maybe tomorrow,” he said.
His family was not so hopeful. “What about when you start traveling again?” Rose said. “You’re not leaving him with me. I wouldn’t know how to handle him.”
Macon told her they would get to that when they got to it.
It was hard for him to imagine resuming his travels. Sometimes he wished he could stay in his cast forever. In fact, he wished it covered him from head to foot. People would thump faintly on his chest. They’d peer through his eyeholes. “Macon? You in there?” Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. No one would ever know.
One evening just after supper, Julian stopped by with a stack of papers. Macon had to slam Edward into the pantry before he opened the door. “Here you are!” Julian said, strolling past him. He wore corduroys and looked rugged and healthy. “I’ve been phoning you for three days straight. That dog sounds awfully close by, don’t you think?”
“He’s in the pantry,” Macon said.
“Well, I’ve brought some materials, Macon—mostly on New York. We’ve got a lot of suggestions for New York.”
Macon groaned. Julian set his papers on the couch and looked around him. “Where are the others?” he asked.
“Oh, here and there,” Macon said vaguely, but just then Rose appeared, and Charles was close behind.
“I hope I’m not interfering with supper,” Julian told them.
“No, no,” Rose said.
“We’ve finished,” Macon said triumphantly.
Julian’s face fell. “Really?” he said. “What time do you eat, anyhow?”
Macon didn’t answer that. (They ate at five-thirty. Julian would laugh.)
Rose said, “But we haven’t had our coffee. Wouldn’t you like some coffee?”
“I’d love some.”
“It seems a little silly,” Macon said, “if you haven’t eaten.”
“Well, yes,” Julian said, “I suppose it does, Macon, to someone like you. But for me, home-brewed coffee is a real treat. All the people in my apartment building eat out, and there’s nothing in any of the kitchens but a couple cans of peanuts and some diet soda.”
“What kind of place is that?” Rose asked.
“It’s the Calvert Arms—a singles building. Everybody’s single.”
“Oh! What an interesting idea.”
“Well, not really,” Julian said gloomily. “Not after a while. I started out enjoying it but now I think it’s getting me down. Sometimes I wish for the good old-fashioned way of doing things, with children and families and old people like normal buildings have.”
“Well, of course you do,” Rose told him. “I’m going to get you some nice hot coffee.”
She left, and the others sat down. “So. Are you three all there is?” Julian asked.
Macon refused to answer, but Charles said, “Oh, no, there’s Porter too.”
“Porter? Where is Porter?”
“Um, we’re not too sure.”
“Missing?”
“He went to a hardware store and we think he got lost.”
“A little while before supper.”
“Supper. You mean today.”
“He’s just running an errand,” Macon said. “Not lost in any permanent sense.”
“Where was the store?”
“Someplace on Howard Street,” Charles said. “Rose needed hinges.”
“He got lost on Howard Street.”
Macon stood up. “I’ll go help Rose,” he said.
Rose was setting their grandmother’s clear glass coffee mugs on a silver tray. “I hope he doesn’t take sugar,” she said. “The sugar-bowl is empty and Edward’s in the pantry where I keep the bag.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Maybe you could go to the pantry and get it for me.”
“Oh, just give him his coffee straight and tell him to take it or leave it.”
“Why, Macon! This is your employer!”
“He’s only here because he hopes we’ll do something eccentric,” Macon told her. “He has this one-sided notion of us. I just pray none of us says anything unconventional around him, are you listening?”
“What would we say?” Rose asked. “We’re the most conventional people I know.”
This was perfectly true, and yet in some odd way it wasn’t. Macon couldn’t explain it. He sighed and followed her out of the kitchen.
In the living room, Charles was doggedly debating whether they should answer the phone in case it rang, in case it might be Porter, in case he needed them to consult a map. “Chances are, though, he wouldn’t bother calling,” he decided, “because he knows we wouldn’t answer. Or he thinks we wouldn’t answer. Or I don’t know, maybe he figures we would answer even so, because we’re worried.”
“Do you always give this much thought to your phone calls?” Julian asked.
Macon said, “Have some coffee, Julian. Try it black.”
“Why, thank you,” Julian said. He accepted a mug and studied the inscription that arched across it. “CENTURY OF PROGRESS 1933,” he read off. He grinned and raised the mug in a toast. “To progress,” he said.
“Progress,” Rose and Charles echoed. Macon scowled.
Julian said, “What do you do for a living, Charles?”
“I make bottle caps.”
“Bottle caps! Is that a fact!”
“Oh, well, it’s no big thing,” Charles said. “I mean it’s not half as exciting as it sounds, really.”
“And Rose? Do you work?”
“Yes, I do,” Rose said, in the brave, forthright style of someone being interviewed. “I work at ho
me; I keep house for the boys. Also I take care of a lot of the neighbors. They’re mostly old and they need me to read their prescriptions and repair their plumbing and such.”
“You repair their plumbing?” Julian asked.
The telephone rang. The others stiffened.
“What do you think?” Rose asked Macon.
“Um . . .”
“But he knows we wouldn’t answer,” Charles told them.
“Yes, he’d surely call a neighbor instead.”
“On the other hand . . .” Charles said.
“On the other hand,” Macon said.
It was Julian’s face that decided him—Julian’s pleased, perked expression. Macon reached over to the end table and picked up the receiver. “Leary,” he said.
“Macon?”
It was Sarah.
Macon shot a glance at the others and turned his back to them. “Yes,” he said.
“Well, finally,” she said. Her voice seemed oddly flat and concrete. All at once he saw her clearly: She wore one of his cast-off shirts and she sat hugging her bare knees. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you at home,” she said. “Then it occurred to me you might be having supper with your family.”
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
He was nearly whispering. Maybe Rose understood, from that, who it was, for she suddenly began an animated conversation with the others. Sarah said, “What? I can’t hear you.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Who’s that talking?”
“Julian’s here.”
“Oh, Julian! Give him my love. How’s Sukie?”
“Sukie?”
“His boat, Macon.”
“It’s fine,” he said. Or should he have said “she”? For all he knew, Sukie was at the bottom of the Chesapeake.
“I called because I thought we should talk,” Sarah said. “I was hoping we could meet for supper some night.”
“Oh. Well. Yes, we could do that,” Macon said.
“Would tomorrow be all right?”
“Certainly.”
“What restaurant?”
“Well, why not the Old Bay,” Macon said.
“The Old Bay. Of course,” Sarah said. She either sighed or laughed, he wasn’t sure which.
“It’s only because you could walk there,” he told her. “That’s the only reason I suggested it.”